Drifter
by twentytwelve
Summary: wherein sasuke and naruto were doomed from the start. "i know my sorries won't make it better, but i want to help you make it better over time." "please— stay with me." {republished}
1. before

_all you want so far is love, death, and some kind of higher high._

︎︎

𓅰i published this a while back on wattpad but never finished. i named it caraphernalia, inspired by the song obv. there's still some of that inspiration there but i found this to fit better. i'll be republishing this on other platforms as well.︎︎

**tw**: self harm. self hate. will add to this.︎︎

︎︎

_there's nothing stopping you from leaving._

_please don't go, drifter._ ︎

**love, death, distraction.**

**EDEN.**


	2. one

Naruto didn't know why it took him two weeks until after school had already started to notice him. In his history class, the teacher partnered up the students for a short role-playing activity, and Naruto had gotten paired up with him.

"Sasuke," said the teacher, and Naruto had to ask again.

"Wait, _who_?"

"Your partner is Sasuke," she repeated calmly. When Naruto showed no recognition at the name, she pointed in his direction. "The one with the beanie." Naruto turned around and looked, finally seeing him for the first time. He had pale skin and jet black hair with a maroon beanie on his head, and Naruto could easily see the gauges he had in his ears from there.

"Is he new?" Naruto asked, and the teacher shook her head. Naruto looked at him again, and Sasuke turned his head up to look at Naruto casually before looking down again. Had that kid really been there from the beginning of the year? It couldn't have been. That was the first time Naruto had ever seen him.

Naruto got up and gathered his stuff, going to the back of the room where Sasuke sat. He sat in front of him, pulling out the paper with their assignment before looking up to examine the black haired boy. Now that Naruto was closer, he could see that Sasuke had small black enclosures for snake bites and another in his septum. The gauges were no bigger than a dime, to Naruto's relief (those huge gauges really grossed him out), and they were black as well.

"Hey," Naruto finally greeted. Sasuke was already staring at him as if asking the blonde what he thought he was doing. "Um, I'm your partner for this. I'm Naruto." Sasuke looked at him a moment longer before nodding.

"I'm Sasuke," he said, turning his phone off and placing it face down on his desk.

That was the first time Naruto had seen Sasuke, and since that day, every time the teacher called attendance, he heard Sasuke's name above everybody else's, even his own. He could've sworn that the teacher had never called Sasuke's name before, but then again, he wouldn't have noticed since he hardly paid attention. For a couple of days, Naruto would glance at Sasuke every now and again in class, and at random times throughout the day Naruto would see him around campus, but he made no attempt to reach out to him.

"Hey," Naruto said to his friends during lunch, "do you guys know that Sasuke guy?" Shikamaru and Choji looked up from their trays at the blonde, and Kiba stopped in the middle of the story he was telling.

"Hm? The emo one?" Kiba asked, looking curiously at Naruto.

"Uh... I don't know about emo," Naruto said, "but he has the piercings and the gauges, and he wears a lot of black." All three boys around Naruto nodded in recognition, and Neji and Sakura looked up from their conversations.

"Yeah, you know I heard he's gay," Choji pitched in, taking a bite of his food. "Not that there's anything wrong with that."

"He probably is," Kiba said. "I've never seen him look at any girls with interest."

"So you're watching him?" Shikamaru asked, and the others started laughing.

"No I'm not!" Kiba exclaimed, turning red. "I just noticed it, jeez." As the others messed around about Kiba watching Sasuke, Naruto looked around the cafeteria, detaching himself from the conversation. Subconsciously, he found himself looking for the head of Sasuke, that maroon beanie he wore, but he was nowhere to be found.

"Naruto!"

Naruto quickly turned back to the group at his table, seeing them all looking at him.

"Hm? What?"

"I asked if you have any classes with him," Kiba repeated. Naruto thought for a second, then remembered the topic of conversation.

"Oh, yeah I do," Naruto answered. "History." Kiba lifted one of his eyebrows in question.

"You okay, man? You seem a little spacey." Naruto took a moment to smile and chuckle lightly.

"Yeah, of course I'm fine," he said. "Just thinking... Hey, what grade is he in?"

"Hm? Emo kid?" Naruto felt like arguing that he wasn't emo, but then he didn't really know Sasuke so he couldn't say, so he just nodded. "Um... I think he's a junior."

"No, he's a senior," Sakura said.

"No no," Choji interrupted, "he's a junior. He's in my homeroom."

"Really?" Sakura asked. "I could've sworn he was a senior." Just then the bell rang, and the group got up. Naruto looked up at the clock momentarily before getting up with his friends. Sasuke the junior, eh? Naruto was a junior, too. He wanted to ask more about Sasuke, but the bell already rang, plus he didn't want to make it seem as if he were stalking the guy or something. So he quietly walked to class with his thoughts.


	3. two

_Stop staring at me.._

Sasuke could feel blue eyes burning into his soul as he looked down at his desk, resisting the urge to look up. He focused on scrolling through his Instagram feed, whipping past a multitude of selfies to stop and like a picture of a Tim Burton style sketch drawn in blue ink. After just a few seconds, he got bored of it and swiped down on his phone to show him the song currently blasting through his earbuds. He quickly tapped the skip button to go from Nine Inch Nails to Avenged Sevenfold.

He stared at his phone for a second as the intro began, and as soon as Sasuke deemed the beat heavy enough to fit his mood, he turned the screen black and placed his phone face down on his desk.

Then, his eyes flicked up.

Crap! Why did he have to look up when he said he wouldn't? Sasuke's eyes looked up just in time to meet Naruto's piercing blue eyes for just a millisecond, both of them immediately averting their gaze downward after. Sasuke felt a bit of heat stir in his chest and travel up to his ears and cheeks as he stared down at the back of his phone, grabbing the hem of his shirt.

Ever since he'd been paired up with the blonde during that one stupid role-playing activity, Naruto just wouldn't stop staring at Sasuke. Sasuke was extremely bothered by it, especially since the staring overlapped into time _outside_ the classroom. He'd noticed those blue eyes following him down the hallways and scanning the courtyard, and what really annoyed Sasuke was that he found himself subconsciously craving that vague, yet so blatantly obvious attention. Naruto was attractive, to say the least.

Sasuke didn't hear the bell ring, but he knew it'd happened when he noticed everyone getting up from their seats and leaving the class. He had long since put away his folder and notebook for class, so he stood up, slinging his backpack over his shoulder and grabbing his phone as he strode out of class. He kept his gaze towards the floor, slightly nodding his head to the beat of the song when suddenly a shock of blonde hair appeared in front of Sasuke, stopping him in his tracks. Sasuke abruptly stopped walking, yanking an ear bud out of his ear and turning down the music on his phone as he took a step away from Naruto. The boy didn't seem to understand the concept of "personal space".

"Can I... help you?" Sasuke asked when Naruto just started at him. He felt a little uncomfortable, especially considering he was at least a couple of inches shorter than the blonde.

"Um, do you sit in the cafeteria at lunch?" Naruto finally asked, his blue eyes wide with genuine curiosity. Sasuke knitted his eyebrows together and looked down, turning off his music and taking out the other ear bud.

"...No. Why?"

"Oh. Well where do you go, then?"

"Why do you want to know?" Naruto frowned a little, looking to the side.

"Well, I mean... I was gonna ask if I could sit with you."

"No." Sasuke proceeded to slide past Naruto and continue walking, but before he could even take two full steps, Naruto was back in front of him.

"Wait wait, but why not?" Sasuke tried to sidestep and get past Naruto, but was again blocked off. What was up with the guy? Sasuke sighed, annoyed, and finally answered.

"Because I don't want to sit by you?"

"But you don't even know me."

"Maybe that's the reason why."

"The reason why you don't know me? Well, if I sat by you I could fix that-"

"The reason I don't wanna sit by you, dumbass," Sasuke snapped, rolling his eyes. He briefly questioned if Naruto was serious before concluding he wasn't when the blonde smiled knowingly. Sasuke looked away from Naruto, feeling just a slight tinge of heat touch his cheeks at that cute smile. _Mother of-_ Why did he have to be such a _girl_?

"Well," Naruto said, obviously not catching the shame upon Sasuke's cheeks, "you can't really say that because at one point or another, you didn't know the people you sit with now."

"I can say that. I don't sit with anyone." Sasuke then proceeded to walk past Naruto, and this time the blonde let him, much to Sasuke's relief. He walked outside the main building, following his main route to the building the least amount of people went to. He went to the far end of the building, then descended the flight of stairs and found the bench at the top that nobody ever occupied.

Well, no one but him, anyhow.

Sasuke sat down and sighed, sitting in the quiet shaded atmosphere for a few seconds. It was outside and high off the ground and blocked from most others' vision, and it even had the added luxury of shade. He wouldn't bring the annoying blonde up there for the life of him. Sasuke had to share space and time with people all day long. Why couldn't he have a few minutes of his own?

He pulled his phone out of his pocket, putting his ear buds in and putting on some music before pulling a notebook out of his backpack. He crossed his legs and opened his notebook on his lap, flipping through pages and pages of writing in all different styles and sizes. His notebook was absolutely chaotic, and it was one of the few things that actually made him smirk every now and again. Sasuke took a blue pen in hand, for he always wrote in blue ink, and just as pen touched paper...

"Hey! Hello?" Sasuke jumped and ripped out his ear bud yet again to find the same shock of blonde hair interrupting him.

"What are you doing up here?" Sasuke immediately asked. What the hell. That was _his_ spot of solitude. Not anyone else's.

"...I followed you up here?" Naruto just didn't seem to get it. His blue eyes were wide in genuine curiosity as he stared down at Sasuke, a half eaten cup of instant ramen in his hand. Sasuke was ready to blow up right then and there and take it all out on Naruto.

And he nearly did. But the blonde was so innocently _oblivious_. So instead Sasuke fought back the urge to punch him in the face, his knuckles turning white around his grip on his notebook. Oh god, holding back anger was so unpleasant. Sasuke's stomach churned and his throat grew tight in complaint against the withholding of such rage, and when he couldn't take it anymore, he got up and left. He heard Naruto call his name, but he didn't so much as think about it. Sasuke quickly fled the staircase and passed over the cement towards the main building. He didn't know where he was going, but at that moment, anywhere but in Naruto's prescience sounded luxurious.

At long last, the Uchiha settled on a hardly used bathroom at the end of the main building. Despite contrary beliefs, the restroom was actually not infested with spiders and evil spirits, and was actually quite clean due to the lack of activity. It even almost didn't smell like sewage in there.

Sasuke locked himself in the largest stall at the far end and sat on the latrine, sighing heavily with his head in his hands. People were hard to deal with, but Naruto was a whole different extreme. Did the blonde really think that everyone wanted him as a friend? Because he surely seemed to believe it. And now even Sasuke's only alone spot had been found out. He was sure that Naruto would bring other people there, and then Sasuke would have to go back to wandering school grounds and going back to where everyone who called him a "friend" hung out.

Finally the bell rang, ending lunch. Sasuke sighed yet again, getting up and making his way out of the bathroom. Since his private place had already been taken, things probably couldn't get much worse from there. Maybe it wouldn't even be that bad reconciling with some of his old friends.


End file.
